


in her head

by NacreousGore



Series: TWL Top Dogs Week [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Banshee Lydia Martin, Character Study, Ficlet, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:20:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29899617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NacreousGore/pseuds/NacreousGore
Summary: very quick prompt based character study of Lydia highlighting her coming to terms with her identity within the supernatural and my headcanon for her processing and anchor.
Series: TWL Top Dogs Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2198433
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	in her head

**Author's Note:**

> taking part in Top Dogs Week run by teenwolflegacy on Tumblr, Day 1.   
> I'm writing this in one go so they're more like warmups or ficlets I suppose.  
> Open to additional prompts over on my Tumblr -> https://nacreousgore.tumblr.com

Lydia Martin’s greatest tool was her mind.

For the short stretch of life that had brought her to sophomore year, her mind had always been the thing to rely on. 

Lydia found comfort in the facts. Variables, things proven, things that demanded to be proven. Irrefutable evidence did not allow itself to be argued with, and neither did she. 

Early on her mother had recognized the sharpness in Lydia’s eyes, the quick spin of her mind. Nothing went over her head without Lydia then climbing up to drag it back down from the rafters. She too demanded for things to be proved. Dismissals and glossed over answers didn’t sit with her. 

Her mother gave up trying to sugar coat things and found an apt pupil in her daughter, a sponge for life lessons, quick witted and impossible to hide things from. 

When Lydia was caught in the crosshairs of her parents’ failing marriage she silently observed and absorbed. Mostly, the whole affair bored her. 

Her father used her refusal to talk feelings to his advantage. He could write a check, receive a list and deliver a gift then leave it at that. Bought apologies, bought affection, and if Lydia grew up associating impersonal gifts with a free pass to be emotionally distant, then it was a byproduct and not a side effect. 

Lydia gets what Lydia wants, but that wasn’t quite the truth of things. Lydia got what Lydia asked for. And for all of her asking, all of her questions - her demands, her draw to things demanding to be proven - she hadn’t always known what it was she was asking for. Along with the lessons, the answers her mother had given her, her father’s removed voice asking for her shopping lists she can also hear a warning. Be careful, Lydia. Be careful what you ask for.  
Lydia can feel the planes of her life, and the line that runs between them. The separation of Before, and things held in that plane are both golden and vapid. 

The shift through that Before had been like memorizing every side and surface of a shape, and then a light had been put to it, and a prism revealed. And beneath, beyond, a new dimension. A whole new shape. New rules, and new unknowns.

Back in that before, the ritual of getting made up had felt like weaponizing her features. Now Lydia felt like the weapon. 

Before, lipstick and satin were worn like protective barriers, another removal of herself from the rest of the world. To be beautiful, to be above the rest. But as above so below.

Now the ritual of making herself up had a different reflection watching back in the mirror. A decrepit face, all gaping mouth and vacant eyes.

Research was always second nature. After all, all research was was asking questions, demanding things to be proven, demanding the mechanics, the inner workings of things to reveal themselves to her. Show me your insides, your secrets. Show me your motor, your motives, your real face. What Lydia had was a hunger to know everything there was to know. To know it all was to hold all the cards, and Lydia wanted them all. 

Into that beneath, that beyond, what Lydia found out was that she hardly knew anything. That there was a whole underworld to her reality. 

And in the face of all these unknowns Lydia turns to research. Her safety net of books and formulas. Facts and irrefutable evidence. 

One of the first things Lydia finds herself truly struggling with is the shift. Moving from facts to these deep-set feelings suddenly imposed upon her by forces out of her control, and forces under her skin. Instinct and intuition - irrational things that she can’t explain. It’s a rift in her foundation. 

But the research and the drive for answers propels her forward.

Lydia consumes everything that books could tell her about banshees. 

The name exists in her mind as an entry separate to herself. Something to be catalogued and defined, something to learn from. When she first hears it - and it echoes through her mind like a scream - she can’t bring herself to invite it in, to name it, sit with it, embrace it. But times wears down and eventually Lydia cracks the door. It occupies a quiet corner of her identity. 

The other banshees occupy her mind in quiet places too. 

Meredith, committed and alone. Lenore banished, doomed to survive. For Lydia the worst of the three is her grandmother - only alone for the end, with enough life behind her to know who wasn’t there anymore. 

Being alone feels like an inevitable. The formula is there, and formulas don’t lie to her. Don’t get in her head and distort themselves into other shapes. There’s no manipulation in math. 

Sometimes things loop through her mind. Parallels and repetitions. Things that double up and coincide and feel irrational. 

Things like numbers. Often they come to her in threes, and synchronicities add up. 

First it’s the Darach’s sacrifices. The Three-Fold death. Their faces come to her at night, and they’re shepherded by the three other banshees. Harbingers of death, but left trailing after it too. 

Her mind tries to connect them, tries to see some version of events where they all align. 

Meredith - harnessed and used until she stopped being useful. Lydia can still feel her inside her own mind. Echoes of her memories, warping with her own. It’s mostly a far-off blur. Broken glass and a feeling of hollowness. 

Lenore feels like a curse to dwell on. Delusion, denial, dark water. 

Memories of Lorraine Martin exist within hazy lines. Hands in her hair when a child-sized Lydia demanded answers for questions that had merely opposed her and not lurked in frightening shadows. The smell of lightning storms and ashes. Blood and porcelain, memories both stolen and returned.

The banshees walk through her mind, connected and elusive. 

They hurt to dwell on, but they don’t dig through tissue like the three men who got inside her head. 

There’s Peter, both versions of him. The young and the corrupt, both charred and charming, interrupting her sleep with dreams of a spiral she still feels she could become ensnared in, winding down. Then Theo with his claws. Valack with his tools. 

Parallels and repetitions, and it’s easy to get lost in them. As easy as getting lost in the woods, but the woods of her mind go on endlessly, and there’s no search and rescue looking for her here. 

So Lydia finds her own anchor, and grounds herself. 

What she chooses is Euler’s Identity. It runs smoothly alongside her own, perhaps more assuredly. 

The linking together of fundamental numbers, equality and connection between so many things that seem so separate. It grounds her, calms her, too. The proof and the irrational, the profound connection of things. 

The ghosts don’t leave, but they look less like horrors in reflection. Lydia can separate, can detach until the ghosts resemble lessons. The reflection in the mirror can be painted over with tricks and tools. 

Lydia’s greatest tool was her mind. Her greatest tool and her greatest weapon.


End file.
